Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

The financial world is complex. So complex that if I'm honest, I don't think any of us on here could even begin to have an overview. There are hundreds of different parts, all of which have many different values, and for every single one of those values, there will be some saying it's good and some bad. A strong pound is good for some, bad for others, to take but one simple point.

The Tories started to remove the constraints from the banks, and Labour were stupid enough to go on doing it.

Gordon was the one in the chair when the yank's subprime shitstorm hit us. I don't think the charmless scot could have done squat, to be honest.

Had the tories got in at the election before, then they would have been in the eye of the storm, and it wouldn't have been their 'fault' either.

I was just reading an article this morning that really boiled my piss. In Spain, politicians earn way more that the average guy in the street, get massive perks, pay less tax (about a quarter) and best of all, to get their full pension, they only have to work for 7 years. The average guy? 35.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

Its funny, one of the "deal breakers" for Greece and part of the reason they are all kicking off so much is the pension promise. Basically, if your father worked in a public sector job, you get his pension as well when he dies. Imagine that, its utter madness to ask Europe (and ultimately its Europe who has to pay) to set a fathers son up in life, thats what parents have to do privately all over the world.

It irritates me to read people slagging off the bail outs. There is hardly a financial commentator worth their salt who would advocate that, we live in a capitalistic world, like it or loathe it, thats the world we live in and the reason many people have had the ability to move overseas and enjoy their expat life is partly because of that capitalistic world we live in and partly because of the benefits they have reaped from the very bank practices they are now slagging off. As an ex client told me just after the crash, we are only reading about this because it went wrong, we have (he was a hedge fund manager) gambled with banks money a thousand times a year, every year, for the last 20 plus years, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

Plus of course, heard today that greece has 120% of the army we have, and yet their population is 1/6th of ours. WTF? I assume, of course that their contribution to Lybia, Afghanistan et al is proportional?

I accept that the banking syatem is not dissimilar to a giant roulette whell, but what drives me completely insane was the subprimes sold to people who had no job, no prospects, and no money. Plus, what went on with the banks here? Selling 120% mortages? Aaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!!

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

I think most ppl do.

Maybe the question should be,....Do they really care ?

Especially these lefty union leaders who are hellbent on maximum disruption, walkouts and strikes later in the year.

It wouldn't by any chance be another Scargill-like attempt to bring down or seriously weaken the elected govt. when they've barely even begun to clean up Browns mess ?

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

I could not agree more mate, but the other thing you have to remember is this... if people hadn't of been such greedy cocks, or, in many cases stupid, they wouldn't have been 120% mortgages.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

Let's be fair, Scargill was an arse, but he was right when he said the Tories were hell bent on destroying the UK coal indusrty which was possible the best good quality deep coal extraction business in the world.

Plus it ain't Brown's mess, it was caused by the bloody yanks, who are currently working out how to run away from Afghanistan and drop them in the Taliban flavoured brown stuff.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

Matt, government is supposed to keep an eye on us and stop us from indulging ourselves, not give us a box of matches and the keys to the petrol pump.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

I disagree wholeheartedly, people, and by that I mean the chattering classes, think that the banks are evil... they hate the banks, so much so in a couple of cases that some former clients of mine back home in Sussex have stopped telling people they are in banking because they are honestly in fear for their lives... Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

not sure how the general public would take that,,,,,,
we trusted our banks, we believed all the hype they gave us, because we were being paid 5-7% interest we took no notice of the 25% they were charging on our credit cards, the £25+ for a letter telling us we are overdrawn, the PPI that never pays out when we need it, repossessing houses and selling them for the sum outstanding on the mortgage rather than the full market price.

now we find that they have paid themselves £millions in salary and bonuses whilst having failed to do the job they were employed to do and also they cannot be sacked due to a cosy employment contract. If they are unfortunate enough to have to leave with £12m in the back pocket they know they only have to wait 12months and another cushy job for the boys will come their way. Meanwhile, we find we can be sacked by e-mail because it is so distasteful to stand infront of the masses and tell them face to face.

Even when granny put all her money under the bed she couldn't change it because it had been superseeded by a new edition.

if bankers are now feeling lower than estate agents and recruitment consultants then its their own fault.

Come the revolution bankers will still be trying to charge us for the money borrowed for the tumbril taking them to guillotine.

Sorry - looks like I have no sympathy, wonder why ?

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

OK, first off, No-one, but no-one ever went broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the general public.

Second, I assume that anything that has been legal tender is still exchangeable at the bank. I'm pretty sure I'm right here. I do know that long after the one pound note had ceased to be legal tender, I found a bunch of them, and the bank changed them without a murmer.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

A slight exaggeration, surely? Or perhaps they are really bad at assesing risk. True, they aren't very popular, but I haven't read of anyone even being assaulted, much less killed. :confused:

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

So when the same guys were earning billions for their banks and bringing in business that ultimately, for the last 20 or 30 years has brought about stability to your finances it was fine... the second they screw up you want their blood. As I said, if this had gone well we would have all be laughing and jumping about and buying nice villas in Spain, but it didn't and it showed the house of cards the whole thing was built on, from the top, the bankers trying to make millions and retire before they are 40 to the home owners trying to cash in on the over inflated house prices... I didn't see too many people who owned housed deciding to sell them to the lowest bidder because they wanted to do the right thing by a first time buyer, nope, people sold their houses for the best they could get, they wanted as much they could get away with.... so whats the difference between them and the bankers?

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

Not at all mate, I know of one (I know, hardly a wide range of people) who moved house from his flat in London because he had "scum" painted all over his car in red paint. Now you could argue that maybe he over reacted but until you have been a pariah in a particular area I don't think you can understand just how hard it is to live somewhere so sinister. Would you happily walk your kids to the car with "scum" daubed all over it?

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

At the end of the day, these people and their 'handlers' should have been a little restrained. Every gambler with sense takes a fixed amount of money to play with, and when that's gone, walks away from the table.

No matter how well the cards are running, you shouldn't take ridiculous risks.

Our bankers' acts weren't a problem till they started tapping into the deep well of shit that was the US subprime market.

Had the yanks not started that piece of work, we wouldn't have been in the mess we are today. I think of it as playing pass the parcel with a bomb in the wrapping. Everyone thinks that by passing it on, they will escape the problems, but in reality the bomb was big enough to destroy the whole room, and they should have seen that one coming.

Re: WE NEED YOUR OPINION, TOO
 

I could not agree more mate, I'm not arguing that they should have done it, but its done and peoples reaction is pathetic, as I have said, we all rolled on the wave of the prosperity this house of cards gave us and not once did we question their actions.... now I know that its hard to get to the bottom of some financial institutions but its not like we don't have a particularly aggressive journalistic heritage in the UK, someone, somewhere, knew this could all go to shit, there just wasn't the appetite to do anything about it.

As for risks, I disagree mate, I want them to take them, as the son of a property developer I know only too well what makes money, if he didn't take risks we would never have had anything, of course the flip side to that is we often had bailiffs tapping on the door. I heard what you said about the Torries but lets face it, Labour never once, in 11 years, thought about ring fencing retail banking from commercial banking... so something good came out of this whole mess.